


Every Second

by LostCauses (Anteros)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fluff, M/M, after the war, eruri - Freeform, reaching the ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anteros/pseuds/LostCauses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes months to persuade Levi into the water. Erwin swims as often as he can.  Revelling in the cool clean touch of salt water on skin, the buoyancy of it, the eternal wonder that they actually made it.  That improbably, impossibly, they survived, damaged and scarred as they are, and reached the ocean.</p><p>A short fluffy antidote to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/6074742">Beautiful</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Second

It takes months to persuade Levi into the water.

Erwin swims as often as he can. Revelling in the cool clean touch of salt water on skin, the buoyancy of it, the eternal wonder that they actually made it. That improbably, impossibly, they survived, damaged and scarred as they are, and reached the ocean.

Levi is equally in awe, but refuses to be cajoled into the water. He sits on the beach watching Erwin swim, toes buried in the sand. Sometimes he walks along the waterline, waves lapping at his feet, until he’s just a dark smudge at the far end of the beach. When he returns his pockets are filled with shells. A small collection have found their way into the cottage on the cliff top where they line the kitchen sill. But still Levi refuses to be tempted into the water.

“It’s dirty.”

“It’s the sea, Levi, it’s not dirty.”

“Fucking fish shit in it.”

Erwin rolls his eyes.

“It feels disgusting.”

“It’s just the salt, you’ll get used to it.”

“It’s cold.”

That one earns Levi a flat stare.

Erwin curses his pig headed stubbornness, though really he no longer begrudges it, that stubbornness kept Levi alive during the war after all. But Erwin hasn’t come this far to give up so easily; eventually he wears him down. He always was the only one who could bend Levi’s will.

Slowly, surely, Erwin encourages him into the water; coaxing him past ankles, knees, thighs, (just managing to restrain his laughter at Levi’s startled hiss), waist, then onto his back, hand supporting his hips. He floats easily, buoyant as driftwood.

Once Levi gets over his initial reluctance, he learns quickly, takes to the ocean as though it’s his natural element. Before long he’s scything through the water, twisting and tumbling with elegance and ease, diving into the waves with the sleek, lithe grace of an otter. 

Levi moves as effortlessly in the water as he once did in the air and it doesn’t take him long to combine the two elements, diving from the cliffs by the cottage. Erwin almost chokes the first time he sees Levi plummet from the rocks. Levi just laughs and scrambles up the cliff path to dive again. Arcing out into the air, graceful as a tern, entering the water with the controlled accuracy of a plunging gannet. Erwin takes a deep breath as Levi dives and holds it until his lungs are bursting. It’s long, long, heart-stopping moments after Erwin has released his breath in a painful gasping rush that Levi finally surfaces, further out than seems humanly possible. Erwin begins to wonder if he is, in fact, part seal.

Erwin sometimes feels a brief stab of regret that he didn’t reach the ocean while he still had two strong arms to swim with. He gets by, but it’s not the same. The regret doesn’t last long; there is no place in his life for self-pity. There is grief enough to drown a man, but overwhelming gratitude too. And, though Erwin hesitates to admit it, there is joy.

Erwin watches as Levi stumbles out of the surf and jogs up the beach. He still limps slightly; like Erwin’s missing arm, like the guilt and the grief, it’s a reminder of all they’ve lost, all they still have to live for. They owe this life to all those that lost theirs; to Mike and Nanaba, to Levi’s squad, to the 104th, to the garrison, and the only way to honour that sacrifice, to repay that debt, is to live every single damn second of it.

Levi drops into the sand beside Erwin, shaking his head like a dog and spraying him with seawater. 

“You should try it.”

Levi lies back in the sand and squints up at him. Erwin just lifts one brow and smiles.

“I’m going to get you up there one day if it fucking kills me.”

“Thanks Levi, I have no desire to fling myself off the top of a cliff, attractive as the prospect might once have seemed.”

Erwin reaches down and brushes sand from Levi’s shoulder, his skin is warm from the sun, sticky with salt.

“You’re going soft in your old age Erwin.”

Erwin leans back on his elbow and smirks down at Levi.

“So, what are you going to do about it then?”

“Tch. You’re still fucking insatiable though, aren’t you?”

Erwin doesn’t argue, just leans down and kisses the familiar taste of the sea from Levi’s lips.


End file.
